Sudden Change In Personality, Depression, Withdrawn. Not Eating....hel

[Guest GreyhoundDG]

Hello, I am new to this social media thing so I hope I can 'do' this right.

 

We have a 9 year old female brood mom that we adopted/rescued from a breeding farm back in August 2015. She is the litter mate to our first female greyhound who passed away only 2 years ago this May.

 

When we adopted/rescued Dorie....that is what we named her, she was only 47 pounds, (racing weight was 66 pounds) infested with fleas and ticks, she has a dislocated toe, her nails had looked like they had not been cut in years, she had blood coming out of both ears with bugs flying around her left ear which also was have bitten off by bugs....she also had a grey/black build up of mucus coming from her left eye. All of her feet....her pads had been burned...now whether the breeder did that or she was allowed to walk in something that burned them...we don't know. But she's alright now....only suffering from the dreaded corns! That is a little list of things that were to come....

 

Shorty after we arrived home with her......within two weeks she suffered FCE a spinal stroke, she than had to have 23 teeth pulled the first time around, than plenty of ER visits with emergency surgeries. She had been under(anesthesia) at least 7 times in under 5 months. Varies reasons for that....including more teeth pulled, infections...ears. She now has 8 teeth left and is possibly going to have 2 more extracted. Her dislocated toe has an extra pad....don't know how to explain it....she is able to walk fine on it as long as myself or my husband places it back in 'joint' very gently. She runs around and plays fine. We spoke with all her vets and specialty vets. Who are all very greyhound savvy....we all agreed there is no reason to amputate her toe...she's alright with it. She holds the left ear in a very bizarre way...she has from day 1. Her vets say it is from trauma...her cartridge could be damaged... she does have hearing loss. She holds it funny when she lays on it for a certain amount of time. Than the issue of the grey/black mucus in the left eye...no one has ever figured that out...she pawed at her eye so bad...I was constantly having to use a nice soft KONG cone for her...the one eye Dr. vet at the VCA said it was nothing and told us she had dry eyes...gave us drops and that was it. One of her regular vets kept telling us it was her teeth....pulled those and she was still pawing and the mucus was still there. Than a specialty dentist in our area who we were referred to...told us it could be 'residual root damage' All sorts of things....the only thing that seems to help her and stop all the pawing is....when I get a warm cotton ball and pull her lower left eye lid down and get the mucus out. Her other vet suggested she may need a tear duct flush...have no idea what to do. But the hair all grew back around her eye, no medicine anymore and the mucus is only there once in a while. So, we don't know if we should have this procedure done. Any suggestions or thoughts we are open to you all for and would be appreciated. We just recently found out she now has pannus and may be blind or partially in the left eye.

 

Now to the current problem what has prompted me to get on here and ask for help. I am so desperate and feel absolutely helpless as does my husband. About 2 1/2 weeks ago we noticed a drastic sudden change in her personality. Despite all of Dorie's past issues...there are the current ones I listed or talked about. She is an absolute joy. She has a heart and mind of a two year old. She runs every morning in the house all over with her toys...which she loves...has her favorites. She actually will run and hop and plow right into her beds...and blankets. She loves her walks...she looks and asks for one every day.....don't care what the weather is like...she will stand in the foyer by the gate crying and looking at me for a walk. She has recently started finally talking to us...barking and rooing! She even chatters like her sister did! It seems Dorie is only able to go for one nice walk a day. She is most active very early in the mornings. We walk almost every single day for about 35 minutes and than on Saturday and Sunday...my husband is able to come with us for a hour long walk...but she runs/jogs most of that. We do stop often for 'sniffing' breaks too! She is so full of life. She does have only one persistent corn on her back left foot/toe pad. We get it hulled every 4-5 weeks. I do it myself sometimes...but we always wind up at the vet for some reason so this is why her vet hulls the corn. We used the stuff from Murray's apothecary for her sister and for Dorie and it worked...Dorie had corns on almost every pad....but that stuff won't help this one...so she wears slippers in the house and shoes outside for our walks/jogs. She eats Blue Buffalo senior food. A can of food and her kibble with chicken I cook and add. I enjoy cooking for her as I did for her sister when she was alive.

 

Anyway, we have noticed she has been very withdrawn, only eating once a day.....and will sometimes turn her head away from the food that she loves. She has not been asking for walks, won't get out of bed to play....she just sleeps. Once in awhile she will go over and get her squeak toy.....and run like she's going to play..but just brings it to her bed...and looks at me as if she's trying to tell me something. and I can't figure it out. I will jiggle her leash to ask her for a walk...and she just stares doesn't react...nothing. Whenever I ask her for a walk or she would come to me....she was running around, talking to me, so happy. Now there's nothing. However, if I bring the leash to her a few times and ask her...and she just stares at me....I'll walk away and she will follow and than out we go. But no excitement at all. Sadly Dorie does not like any other dogs....it appears that way. Her vet has had 7 greyhounds already and now has only one male...and she brings him to the clinic.....Dorie always growls and barks at him...she looks like she wants to attack him! But it's mixed signals...dogs that don't approach her she seems alright. We don't know if she's lonely, I don't have any friends that have greyhounds...we don't know if that's a problem.....her hearing/eyes? Her teeth/gums? Her vet told us on the last visit 2 weeks ago that it's me....her food needs to stay the same and not change it...whatever that means...she did take a blood work up and everything came back fine. I have searched Dorie's body over for any bumps/lumps anything....nothing. I cannot see anything. We don't know if it's mental or physical or both. Dorie also had that Lumbar Stenosis... we have to talk to her vet about what the best course of action is for her with that. Dorie has never been able to jump up or even walk up a very small step...something was wrong with her back end when we rescued her. She won't even sleep in the bed with us or the come up on the couch/sofa...she can't walk up. or jump as I say. We have to carry her. She had xrays and everything appeared fine.....my husband and I are so very concerned for her....can anyone please suggest something to us. Your thoughts as to what is going on with her and what we can do for her. .....she also spooks very easily, thunder phobic, sound phobic I should say to everything. I was and still am very careful and slow to introduce her to knew things/sounds/people...etc. I do know and understand that she feeds off my emotions...as I am typing this....I'm crying because I am so concerned....she heard me let out a little cry and picked her head up so I have to stop.

 

My fear that there is something wrong is very strong because not only from all her past and some current health issues but the way her sister died. I don't want to talk about that...all I will say is that I knew something was wrong with her sister for 2 months...panting and some other changed behavior. She had arthritis in her spine and nails. Was taking medication for that...so the vets were always telling us the panting was the pain.. Well....2 weeks before she died tragically I might add......we brought her in to the VCA....she had an intestinal disease....they did this xray thing where you could also see her spine and her head...very detailed. Anyway, 2 weeks after that she was dead. It was an undetected tumor in her spine very close up by the brain...it exploded and she died. I don't want to talk about this or how it all actually went down with her. It was horrible. And I fear something is going to be missed or is being missed on the inside somewhere on Dorie. Can you all please help us with any of your thoughts and suggestions? We were thinking about an full body MRI...if they do that...don't know what to do....thank you all.

 

I'm sorry for such a long post and all the questions.....I thought it would be helpful to you with her background....well...what we know since she has been with us. Thank you.